23. Help a Pro-rights Candidate- ``THOSE WHO EXPECT TO REAP THE BLESSINGS OF FREEDOM MUST, LIKE MEN, UNDERGO THE FATIGUE OF SUPPORTING IT.'' Thomas Paine. Most people have never volunteered for a political campaign before, and imagine that folks without previous experience wouldn't fit in. Not at all. The majority of volunteer tasks are simple and straightforward. Campaign volunteers can stuff envelopes, or put up yard signs, or make telephone calls, or pass out literature door-to-door, or hand out information at gun shows. Enthusiasm and energy, not prior history, is what makes a good volunteer. Almost any campaign will have a job that needs doing and which a novice can feel comfortable doing. The actual jobs you do as a volunteer might have something to do with guns--such as handing out the candidate's literature at gun shows. More likely, the volunteer work that needs doing may have nothing to do with the gun issue. That's alright. The objective, after all, is to help the pro-rights candidate win, not to spend your time talking about guns. While the campaign schedule varies from state to state, the earlier you volunteer, the more good you can do, and the more chance you have to earn yourself positions of greater and greater responsibility (if you want them). Also, by getting involved sooner, you can help a candidate in the primary election, not just in the general election. Since voter turnout in the primaries is relatively low, good volunteers can make all the more difference. The best candidates to volunteer for are ones whom you know to be stalwart friends of the Second Amendment. If you're not sure which race would be the best to get involved in, call NRA/ILA's state & local affairs office. Ask for the liaison for your state, and he'll point you in the direction of the most important local campaigns. While volunteers make a big difference in statewide races, they are even more important in smaller, local races, such as state legislature or city council. The candidates in these races all have less money, and have to rely on volunteers to spread the word. Besides working as a volunteer, you can: o Make a monetary contribution to a pro-rights candidate o Talk to at least 5 friends or neighbors about the importance of voting for pro-rights candidates o Display a yard sign on bumper sticker for pro-rights candidates o And of course, vote for pro-rights candidates. When you're mailing in your contribution, or picking up your yard sign at campaign headquarters, let a campaign staffer know that your support is based on the candidate's positive stand on the right to bear arms. Does your work make a difference? You bet--sometimes even when we lose. Governor William Schaefer has long been a vehement gun prohibitionist. In 1988, Schaefer's political machine blackmailed regulated businesses like banks and insurance companies to make them contribute to a campaign against small handguns. Fred Griiser, who led the (losing) fight in 1988 against Schaefer's gun ban, ran against Schaefer in the 1990 Democratic primary. Griiser had only $10,000 to spend against Schaefer's 1.2 million dollar war chest. The press ignored Griiser, refusing to even acknowledge that he was running. Yet in the Democratic primary, Griiser tallied an impressive 23% of the vote. In the general election, Schaefer outspent his opponent 20 to 1. Schaefer's Republican opponent faced the further handicap of being a political novice who had selected his wife as a running mate. The political pros expected Schaefer to sweep the state and win over 75% of the vote. But on election day, Schaefer came home with only 60%, and actually lost in a majority of the state's counties. Everyone, including Schaefer's allies, took the relatively narrow margin against a very weak opponent as a personal repudiation of Schaefer's arrogance. The Governor's opponent, William Shephard, explained that many of his own votes came from Marylanders fed up with Schaefer's support for gun control. Schaefer had long been speculating about a run for the Presidency, speculation which his miserable performance against two weak opponents has now ended. Recall Elections Talk of recall elections for legislators who make you mad is almost always political idiocy. The pro-rights vote rarely exceeds five percent, so it's foolish to imagine turning someone out of office in a special election over the gun issue. Wait till the next regular election, when the Second Amendment vote can make a difference in a close race. Group Involvement Besides volunteering as an individual, you can join--or lead--election mobilization on behalf of your gun club or grassroots pro-rights group. Work closely with the candidate's campaign manager, since the manager knows best where scarce resources need to be applied. Moreover, going off on your own jag, without coordinating with the campaign, could backfire, and harm the candidate. If your group will, in addition to time and toil, also contribute money to the campaign, check out what regulations apply. For example, federal law covers contributions to campaigns for President, US Senate, and US House of Representatives, and imposes some limits on donations by organizations. At the same time, organizations have great freedom to put their money into ``independent expenditures.'' Instead of giving money to a candidate, the organization spends its money on its own advertising or other projects on behalf of the candidate. To check out the rules of play, call the Federal Election Commission's toll-free question service, at 800-424-9530 for any question involving federal election law. For state races, the Secretary of State's office in your capital city will usually have information. Pro-rights candidates may be interested in doing a mailing to your organization's members. One way to help the candidate is to pay for the postage for the mailing yourself. In order to preserve your members' privacy, don't give the campaign the actual computer database of your members. Instead, on your own equipment, run a set of adhesive mailing labels for the campaign to use. One of the most useful things you can do in the months before an election is to publish a voter's guide listing how local elected officials have voted on gun control issues. The voter's guide can also include information about primary and general election dates, and how to register to vote. The NRA and Gun Owners of America both send questionnaires to most candidates, so you may want to work with those organizations, and publicize the ratings they give. If you compile your own ratings, be extremely careful in recording pro and con votes. Do not rely on memory; get official records or newspaper reports for which way the legislator voted. Mistakenly giving a pro-rights legislator only an 80% rating because you made an error about he voted on a bill will infuriate the legislator, and may cost you an ally. When deciding which candidates to endorse, you might want to invite them to individual endorsement conferences, to meet with you and two or three of the group's most articulate people. These informal conferences can take place at the candidate's headquarters, or a local restaurant, or any other mutually convenient location. The same rules of promptness and preparation that apply for any meeting with elected officials (chapter 21) apply here too. At the endorsement conference, you'll have the candidate's attention in a way that you may not have again for quite awhile; right now, he wants your support to help get him elected. The conference can be educational for both you and the candidate. Offer to write a position paper about the right to bear arms for the candidate. The position paper serves to put in print all those good things the candidate said to you at the endorsement conference; the position paper thereby helps solidify the candidate's commitment, and gives you an anchor to remind him of his pro-gun promises once he gets elected. In addition, the process of reviewing the draft position paper helps the candidate make up his own mind about the gun issue, and to understand which particular questions involving guns are most important to gun owners. Write the position paper as an outreach document-- with a positive approach that will sound reasonable to voters who don't know much about guns. At the same time, include explicit positions on the topics that are important to you. Try as hard as you can to endorse candidates of various parties. While the Republican Party is generally perceived as more pro-gun than the Democratic Party, there are plenty of pro-gun Democrats. If your group only endorses Republicans, you may be seen as a captive of the Republicans--and be taken for granted by the Republicans, and ignored by the Democrats. If both the Republican and Democratic candidates are anti-gun, consider endorsing the Libertarian candidate. In your first couple or three election cycles, don't feel compelled to get involved in every race. Focus on a few races where your limited resources can have the greatest impact. In general, the smaller the race, the more of a difference a local group can make. At whatever level you choose to get involved, it is very important that you roll up your sleeves for pro-gun candidates. The US House and the Senate are both closely balanced between pro and anti forces. A couple narrow elections could make the difference between the right to bear arms, and the beginning of the end of civilian gun ownership.